Night Ban at Beach for Skateboarders

The San Diego City Council voted Monday to ban nighttime skateboarding on the oceanfront sidewalk between Mission Beach and Pacific Beach.

Between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., skateboards will not be allowed on the public sidewalk known as Ocean Front Walk and Ocean Boulevard, between San Diego Place in Mission Beach to the south and Law Street in Pacific Beach to the north.

The ordinance was first proposed in June by the Mission Beach Town Council. The impetus, according to Chris Rhoades, president of the Mission Beach council, was a rise in residents’ complaints about noise attributed to night skateboarding.

The City Council voted, 7-1, to approve the ordinance, with Mayor O’Connor casting the dissenting vote and Councilman Bob Filner absent. The ordinance goes into effect Nov. 28.

The ordinance, which is the subject of great debate in the beachfront communities it affects, was introduced and discussed at previous council meetings, and was adopted Monday with little public demonstration.

However, Mission Beach shopkeeper Keith Noel, 42, was on hand to speak his peace. Noel, a native of Mission Beach, said the skateboard for a majority of users is a mode of transportation.

“These are not just little kids who ride in Mission Beach,” said Noel, who occasionally rides a skateboard. “Many are students, or people in their 20s who are working and need an inexpensive way to get to their jobs.”

Noel said the city has unfairly focused on skateboarding as the source of late-night and early morning noise. The city could lower street noise by curbing car traffic in Mission Beach’s residential areas, he said.

Noel also said that the new ordinance has singled out skateboarders as responsible for problems on the boardwalk that might be attributed to the rise in bicyclists and roller skaters, who are not covered by the ban.

The ordinance also addresses general safety issues. It states that skateboard riders and people using roller skates, coasters or “toy vehicles” must yield right of way to pedestrians and may not travel “at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent having due regard for pedestrian traffic.”

The city has banned skateboarding at all times in Balboa Park, on city fishing piers, on open roadways, on the sidewalk of public plazas in any business district and where street signs indicate.